


lost and found

by runandgo



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: First Time, Fluff and Angst, M/M, No Spoilers for Book 2: Wayward Son, Porn with Feelings, porn with minor plot???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 07:42:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runandgo/pseuds/runandgo
Summary: "We can call this off if you want, anytime," he reminds me, sits back a little."No," is out of my mouth before I even make a conscious decision to speak. "No, I want you, Simon,I want you." Again, I reach out, this time with my eyes open, and when my pale hand touches his golden skin I try to take some of his courage the way I used to take his magic.





	lost and found

For as much as Simon Snow hates talking about his feelings, he keeps checking in now.

“Is this all right?” he murmurs, again, his mouth on my hipbones, so lush, so full of blood I can feel his pulse in the feather-weight skin of his lips. I’m hungry in more ways than I’ve ever been before, smelling everything in the room, the dog that lives next door, and especially Simon, buttery and heavy on my tongue. In the tips of my fingers and toes I can even feel his cross rattling loud like radio interference, though it’s two rooms away in a locked iron box. It’s sensory overload, complete and delicious and nearly painful in its intensity, and I can barely manage a whine, let alone a coherent sentence. 

He sets his chin on the pale jut of my hipbone and smiles, patient, self-satisfied. “Baz, please, yes or no.” 

I want to say _I’ve never been more or less ready for anything in my entire life,_ I want to make this moment stretch hours, I want a little bit to bite him when he’s hanging near me like this, so flushed and lovely and alive. (I still never would, never could, but it’s the best way I know to describe the feeling I have, like I could take everything from him and give him everything of me. It’s frightening, that headiness. It teeters on the edge.) 

I swallow and brush my hair back from my face. My hands are sweaty, Simon’s been touching me and warming me up for hours, and the sheet sticks to my other hand as I make a loose fist. “Simon. Yes. Crowley, please, yes.” Years ago I swore I’d never beg Snow for anything; now if he made me get on hands and knees to get the cereal in the morning I’d let him. 

As quickly as it popped into my mind, that thought flits out, because Simon’s mouth is on me, up my torso, hot and wet and leaving marks that disappear in seconds but I feel them long after, like brands. Dimly, I wonder if there are vampires who get off on making out with someone wearing a cross. Simon feels nearly hot enough to _actually_ burn. I can’t say I don’t enjoy it. He’s at my ribcage, then where my heart should be beating, then my clavicle, then my neck, and I arch into his kisses, little fires on my skin. 

Finally, he makes his way to my mouth, and we only kiss for a brief second, mouths barely brushing, before he’s rolling away on the bed, grabbing the small bottle of lube. He’s holding it between his hands, trying to warm it up. Crowley, that’s sweet. “It’s fine, just —“ I cut myself off impatiently, spread my legs and watch his eyes double in size. “Snow, come on.” 

“Baz. _Fuck._” He swears like a Normal now, and I think it’s a good sign. 

I’m suddenly aware that my mouth is full of fangs, crowded and sharp. I can taste my own blood. I would be embarrassed but I’m too far gone to care, my resolve is almost weakened, and I just let my head drop back on the pillow as Simon finally finishes fumbling around with the lube and pushes a cold finger gently inside me. 

His other hand is just sort of resting on my arse, which he already spent plenty of time fondling earlier, thank you very much, so I wish he would just — oh, there’s a second finger now. It stretches a little, doesn’t burn exactly, but it’s something _there._ My hands move of their own volition, grabbing around, eventually tangling themselves in my hair. 

I risk a look down at Simon, and it’s nearly painful. He looks so beautiful. Nicks and Slick, he’s concentrating so hard he’s got his tongue trapped between his teeth. In the next few seconds, the fruit of his labor becomes apparent; he crooks his fingers just so and I arch off the bed, hips first, a sharp intake of air stinging my lungs, a surge of pleasure ringing its way through my body from the base of my spine outwards. 

“Gotcha,” Simon murmurs to himself, like I’m a puzzle he’s been trying to unlock. I want to kiss him, and I almost do, but then I remember my maw of knives. _How could I forget? I never get a break._ Without that connection at the mouth, that reminder of closeness, a touchstone, I feel as though I’m slipping away, and I can’t bring myself back. Like the bed is melting away under me, rocketing me into the sky. I close my eyes again, this time in frustration, giving up on planned loss of control, and reach out for him blindly. My fingers meet warm dappled skin and his movement stops. “Baz?” 

“Just — hold on, Simon.” I feel raw, red, chipped away. Like a plug yanked out of its socket while the connection was still flowing. He pulls his hand away but I barely even feel it. 

The mattress complains as Snow army-crawls towards me, and then his fingers are on my cheekbone, so light they feel like pixie feet. (My mother used to say that freckles were caused by pixies dancing on a baby’s face. They must have had a rager on Simon.) I don’t even realize there are tears on my cheeks until I feel him wiping them gently away. 

“What is it? Do you not want to do this?” 

“No, that’s not it.” I take a breath that catches as it goes in. “Crowley, I want it so badly, Simon, _I want you so badly._” 

“Then what, love?” He takes my face in his hands and it’s torture to be so close. The flame of him drawing me in, always. 

“I’m asking you to... to fuck me —“ He makes a face— “_make love_ to me, however you’d like to say it. And I can’t even kiss you. Because I might bloody kill you if I do.” My voice breaks. This is all utterly belittling. Simon is so warm and solid and I’m falling apart over and over as many times as I can, it feels like, in as many ways as I can. 

He waits until I meet his eyes. His gaze is steady and again I feel pitiful. “Baz, listen to me. Have you bit me?” 

Sitting up on the bed, I push my sticky hair from my forehead. “No,” I admit. 

“Not even when you hated me and had the prime opportunity to do it because I slept like the dead two meters away from you every night?” 

“No.” 

“Not even when you... blew me—“ his voice drops a little, and a slight flush graces his cheeks, though anyone other than me would never notice it— “the other week? And were so dead good at it I thought I must have been dreaming?” 

“No. And thanks.” 

“Not even on that first night when we snogged so hard our lips nearly fell off?” 

“Point taken.” I worry my lip as gently as I can between my front teeth. 

“_Baz._” Simon crawls so he’s propped up between my legs. “I’m not scared.” 

_You’re never scared, Simon Snow. You charge into everything you do like it’s your last stand._

“We can call this off if you want, anytime,” he reminds me, sits back a little. 

“No,” is out of my mouth before I even make a conscious decision to speak. “No, I want you, Simon, _I want you_.” Again, I reach out, this time with my eyes open, and when my pale hand touches his golden skin I try to take some of his courage the way I used to take his magic. I push away my doubts, the same ones that have always eaten away at me, if only for a while. I will have what I want, what I’ve been waiting for, what the stars have aligned to allow, and I will not let myself get in the way. 

“Okay.” The smile that blooms on his face is almost shy, and he trails his hand back along my body, so feather-light I get goosebumps wherever he touches. He finds his mark and resumes his previous movements, and this time they build a long, low heat at the pit of my stomach, between my hipbones, rather than flames of panic in my chest. And then... then, he puts his mouth on me too. 

There are sex spells. Beyond that idiotic _**”Candle in the wind”**_ that all the fourth-years at Watford discover and pass around in a litany of giggling. But if it always feels this good why would anyone use them? I’m a pat of butter melting on one of those scones Snow loves so much. I’m stretching, writhing on the sheets, and my toes are actually curling, which up until now I was sure was just a cliche. 

He slides away and I frown, stung out of my reverie with a cool gust of air, but then Simon slips his red-checked boxers off and my mood changes. 

I won’t waste time describing his body because honestly, I don’t want to share it, but suffice it to say that there is nothing about Simon Snow that I don’t find beautiful. And he’s leaning over me now, and his hands are running through my hair, and his lips are pressed against my forehead (_Crowley, could he _be_ more considerate_), and I am so lucky that this is how the universe decided to make up my shit fate to me. I’d pull out my own fangs, break my own wand for him. I’d cross into the Underworld. This is worth more than anything the world could throw at me now. 

“Okay?” he murmurs, and I can feel him trembling, the muscles in his arm and back and shoulder pulled taut as he holds himself above me. 

Words have officially failed me. I nod, lips pressed tight. Our foreheads touch together, and he threads his fingers with mine, and then we’re joined, slow but sure. 

It hurts, it does. It’s just more than what I’m used to. But the burning fades, and I unclench my jaw to find that my tongue isn’t bleeding, my lower lip isn’t stinging, and, miracle of miracles, my fangs are safely receded into my gums. 

It can’t be the sex that did it; frankly, vampires are worse than the Watford sixth-years that time someone spiked the punch with Love Potion #9, so I can’t imagine that would have an effect on vampire biology. I’m just... full. (And _that’s_ not what I mean.) Like a cup of water, tension keeping a perfect level surface. Balance and equilibrium. If I didn’t know better I would swear I felt my heart beat. _On love’s light wings,_ I think, the soaring sensation in my chest just like flight, and I reach up and stroke the mole on Simon’s cheek with my thumb. 

“Okay?” he asks again, still worrying his lip between his teeth and his tongue. 

I nod, and I pull him in closer with my legs, interlocked around his waist. He closes his eyes and shudders. “Baz, can I—“ 

“You don’t need to ask, darling.” I let slip the endearment without thinking, and kiss him to cut off any remark that might follow. 

He’s too surprised and too focused elsewhere to do anything but kiss back, and his hips start moving seemingly of their own accord, fluid, deliciously slow. When we break apart, he’s looking at me with almost wonder, even though I must still taste like blood, like licking a knife. “I thought that... your fangs.” 

I shake my head, leaning into the movement Simon’s initiated. I’m caught in the tide. I couldn’t resist if I tried, and that’s the opposite of what I want to do. “They’re gone.” 

With that one confirmation, he leans forward and seals his mouth on mine. Our hands are intertwined against the bedsheets. And time is stopped; I could live forever in this moment, and if I did, I know it would be the only kind of immortality I’d ever savor. Us together, slowly rocking back and forth, Simon all around me, in all of my senses. For the moment, nothing else matters. Not what happened at Watford, not my _fucking fangs_, not anything but two breaths, one body; two hearts, one heartbeat. (_But yours is enough, Simon Snow; because the day your heartbeat goes out is the day I’ll know for certain that I’m not alive._) 

When we pull apart, my breath is running so ragged it almost hurts in my throat. Below me, I can feel Simon sliding his free hand underneath me, tipping my hips up, and I arch my back to help him; on the next forward motion, I see stars. (I’d have thought I cast a wordless spell to conjure them in the heat of the moment until I realize my eyes have screwed shut on their own, causing bursts of light in the edge of my field of vision.) Opening them back up again, I see Simon’s face, and his slightly cocky smirk is enough for me to go after that spot on his neck that I love; then it’s his turn to make a small, heavenly noise, so sweet it sends a shiver down my spine. 

He lets me down again, and despite my general enthusiasm for this entire situation, I’m still sightly disappointed — until his hand wraps around my cock, which is possibly the only way for me to appreciate everything about this even more. Simon’s hand is so strong, so warm, and I’m biting my lip so hard I can feel my teeth through it, trying to keep my mouth shut and not let out the sounds that are bubbling up in my chest despite my best efforts to remain quiet. 

I’m cut off from that particular line of action by Simon’s mouth on mine, deep and _filthy,_ searing heat. “Baz,” he says, and I can feel his lips move against my own. “I love you.” 

Merlin, the taste of those words in my mouth. I give them back to him immediately, panting, and we’re kissing again. We’ve taken on a kind of frenetic pace, and I can hear the headboard thudding dully against the wall. I should have cast a cushioning spell, but honestly, this wasn’t planned. It’s all the more beautiful for that fact. 

I know for a fact that neither of us can make this last much longer. I can already feel a peak building, every time Simon’s hand, his body, moves, growing faster and more imminent. “Simon,” I say, nearly a warning, and I sound wrecked, even to my own ears. 

There’s a lovely flush creeping down from his face all the way down to his collarbone, and his sweat has plastered his golden curls to his forehead. He looks like a saint in ecstasy, like some kind of painting, and the fact that he’s in my arms right now — that I’m the one who made him feel this way — is almost impossible to comprehend. As if he’s echoing my thoughts, he slows his pace for one small moment and smiles down at me, a window of sunlight spilling into the room. “You’re so beau-beautiful.” Simon’s stuttering phrases precede his finish, and his hips snap a few more times before I can feel the tension draining from his body, his arm trembling slightly from the release. 

And in one more stroke of his thumb (old sword calluses really do the trick), I’m gone as well, a drawn-out sound escaping my lips at last, my hand clenching on Simon’s shoulder, leaving small red half-moons where my fingernails dig in. For a brief second, my head spins so wildly I lose my sense of direction, only conscious of the bed beneath me, Simon above me, and the air thick and heavy surrounding me, slowing the passage of time. 

As we slowly come back to ourselves, I’m aware of all the uncomfortable sensations I’d been putting off: the sweat at the edges of my hair, the salty stickiness of tears drying on my cheeks, the cramp in my foot I’d gotten at some point while I wound myself around Snow like a bloody anaconda. Looking up and seeing Simon’s face staring back at me, open and raw, but _happy_, makes me forget everything again, instantly. So gentle, he takes my hand and guides it to his chest, places it against his heart. Under the tawny skin it’s beating like a rabbit’s. Fragile but certain: the feeling of us together. Our breaths stay synchronized for a few more seconds, then begin to overlap, falling into a less regular but more commonplace rhythm. Despite that, I can still feel a thread of connection between us, every place his body touched mine, thrumming with an electricity so very different from magic. 

He rolls off of me, onto the floor on his feet with surprising grace. I’m sure that if I tried to stand right now, my legs would collapse under me; they feel remarkably similar to jelly. “Budge over,” Snow says, then flops onto the bed, barely giving me time to shift fully to my side. 

Reaching in my bedside drawer, I pull out my wand, and with a muttered _**”Clean as a whistle!”**_, we’re both free of the mess we (mostly I) had created. (Maybe not _fully_ clean; unlike Snow in his second year, I’m still firmly of the opinion that no spell can replace a hot shower. But we aren’t going to stain the sheets any worse, which is my current priority.) 

As I put my wand away, Snow wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. My head fits right against his collarbone, and I rest my chin on it to look up at him. I must look a sight, because he has to stifle a small laugh. “What?” I ask, and though I’m going for a miffed tone, it just comes out slightly dreamy. _Damn._

”If I’d known this was all it took to get you to relax and _listen_ to me... Crowley, Baz, I should have done this years ago.” He dodges my swat (which doesn’t go anywhere near him anyway; my limbs still aren’t fully under my control) and laughs, self-satisfied. My only form of protest seems to be to climb off of him, so I do, and lay on my side facing him instead, reaching down to pull the blankets up over our hips. 

Simon grows a bit more somber at this and pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “Why did your fangs come out this time? ’S never happened before.” 

I can’t meet his eyes, so I look down at the sheets instead, trace along the patterned stripes with my finger. I don’t want to think about this. All I want is to enjoy what we just did, to be proud of the fact that I got through it, that I had him for a shining stretch of time like I was alive. “I just… I wanted you so much. More than I’ve ever wanted _anything,_ maybe.” Shame is what I’m feeling now, I think, bubbling up in my stomach; hot, caustic shame at my animalistic nature, the way I can’t distinguish lust from hunger, or the way they’re maybe forever intertwined for me. _Merlin and Morgana._ Now I have to close my eyes, or else he’ll see the tears welling up (_for the second fucking time tonight, who am I, a swooning Victorian maid_), and behind them blooms memories I’d rather have forgotten, all the things I did while I was learning to be what I am. Puberty and bloodlust aren’t a good combination, especially not when your roommate is Simon Snow. The first time I allowed myself to think about… well, what we’ve just done… I got an erection _and_ fangs, and there were so many different feelings bursting through me that I just started crying, and both of my problems went away fairly quickly. “I forgot to try to… keep control. And once I remembered I wasn’t worried enough. And unfortunately, a baser instinct won out." 

“Baz.” His hand is on my cheek, comforting, and my instinct is to shrink away from his touch. “I told you, I’m not afraid of you.” 

“Well, maybe you should have a little more regard for your own safety.” This time it comes out with the intended venom. “Simon, if I’m… gone, enough, if I’m losing control in a way I don’t intend to, unlike today, _I could kill you._ Like with the Humdrum. Spell me hard and I’m just…” I can’t finish the sentence. “I can’t _**”Lost and found!”**_ and get my humanity back." 

Simon’s quiet, which is just as well, because I’m well and truly crying now, turning my face into the pillow so he can’t see me. He lets it go on for thirty more seconds or so, until embarrassment overtakes the need to let things out and I start gulping in air, shuddering and shaky. “How many times are we going to have this conversation, Baz?” His voice is light, but firm. “_I know_ what you can do. I’ve seen you rip people apart. I’ve seen you drain a deer. I’ve seen your mouth looking like some kind of fucking weapon, I’ve seen everything. Everything of you.” 

Sliding a hand between my face and the pillow, he turns my head and brings our foreheads together. “If I honestly believed you wanted to hurt me, Baz, I don’t think I could have kissed you in the forest. But I was right. You don’t want to hurt me. You’ve done so many things to avoid hurting me that I don’t think you can even count as a real vampire.” That draws a hiccupy laugh from me, surprising both of us. “If I trust you, why can’t you trust yourself?” 

I shake my head. “You haven’t known me… lived with me as long as I have.” 

“I almost have,” he counters. “When did you get thirsty? Twelve?” 

My arms cross over my chest, protective. “More or less.” 

_The day of the Watford Spring Festival. It was May of second year, and such a bright day that every window of the Whitechapel burst open all by themselves to let the sunshine in. There were all kinds of creatures brought in, part of the Mage’s plan, get us used to diversity in the magickal world. Rides, the rentable Normal kind but spelled to run smooth and never jolt you or slam you against the wall. Stands of food, even better than what we usually ate. _

_ And a pet fair, cats and frogs and rats and all kinds of other animals for the students to buy, if their parents sent them money and signed a permission form. _

_ I could smell it the moment I woke up, jolted from sleep with intense hunger and the inside of my mouth bleeding from the fangs that had made their first official appearance. Practically all the blood at Watford, condensed into one small area, right outside our dormitory. Humans, animals, other magickal beings. And then I knew, for certain, even though I’d been denying it, what that gnawing feeling was in my gut, that wouldn’t go away no matter how much I ate at regular meals. Why I felt so weak, now, could hardly get through ten minutes of football practice without having to sit down. (Coach Mac thought I was anaemic.) It was real. I couldn’t keep hoping this would never happen, that I’d gotten lucky somehow, hadn’t fully been Turned. Head to toe, I broke out in a cold sweat. _

_ Simon spent the better part of that morning trying to convince me to come out to the Festival, but I managed to wave him off by stuffing my head beneath my pillow and telling him I had a migraine. Then I spelled myself to the bed to keep myself from going downstairs. (I knew I could never keep the door or window locked if that was all I tried.) That night, once he was finally asleep, I went out to the woods and I hunted for the first time. I knew I could never take it back, but there was nothing I could do. I was just so hungry. _

“So, I’ve only missed summers,” he’s saying when I force myself away from the memory. I don’t respond, and Simon makes a noise of impatience (somehow the first time he’s been impatient with me throughout this entire ordeal; I expected and deserved it much earlier) and thumbs over my lips. “Baz, look at me.” 

The air stings when I open my eyes, and Simon’s eyes are piercing, straight at me. I’m screwing my face up to try and stop this ridiculous flow of tears. “_I know you._” The emphasis on those three words is so heavy it’s almost like he’s trying to Speak. “We all have things we try not to do, yeah? I wasn’t happy about it when I used to go off. I hurt people, too... way worse than you ever do.” He smiles at me, so reassuring, and it hurts. Crowley, I love him. I’ll love him long after he’s dead and buried. If I live until time immemorial I’ll love him every burning second of it. 

“You’re so much smarter than me about everything else, except this one thing.” Simon kisses my forehead, and I reach out to hold him. I can’t pretend I don’t need him here. “The reason your fangs went away... well, it was ‘cause it’s me, isn’t it? And we love each other, Baz. And when you think about it, love is the most human thing in the world.” 

I snort, even though the hair on the back of my neck is standing up — I may not be quite human, but when your boyfriend gives a speech like that, you’d have to be brain-dead to not react. My breath hitches as I speak, still showing the aftereffects of my crying jag. “Y-you sound like Bunce. Did she say that to you?” 

“No. I learned it from observation.” Simon pulls one side of his mouth up, and wraps his arm around my waist, draws me in close. I let myself go and bury my face in his neck. (He’s so warm, and he smells good. Not in a hungry way; in a regular, attractive-boy way.) 

“So can you stop acting such a martyr about all of this now?” he says in my ear, tracing circles on my back. Instead of a verbal answer, I just squeeze the back of his neck and then push my fingers up into his hair. He lolls his head back into my hand, grinning lazily, and that look steadies me. 

“Oh, and one more thing, Baz.” Simon moves in closer again, and I can feel him pull a grimace against the side of my neck. “_Please_ never mention Penny while we’re naked in bed together again. I mean it.” 

“You always did know how to ruin the mood,” I groan, and turn on my other side so my back is nestled along Simon’s chest. It’s exceedingly vulnerable, about the last amount of vulnerability I’ll allow myself this century. But I love when we do this. I might be taller, but Snow is broader, sturdier, and can envelop me without much trouble at all. His chin is somewhere around the knob at the top of my spine; he’s brushed my hair off to one side and I can feel his breath ruffling through it. We’re quiet, finally, enough so that the sound of cars trundling down the street outside can be heard. There’s rain, I realize -- it must have started earlier, when neither of us were listening for it. The pattering on the windowpane is rhythmic, soothing, matching up with Simon’s breathing. 

I can’t promise him I’ll never get stuck on this again. But I know he’s right, and even more than that, I want to believe him, despite my fear. I want to keep this world that I never thought I’d have. Where I get to wake up in the arms of the only boy I’ve ever loved nearly every morning. Where we can laugh and have sex and watch movies and drink tea and not have to save the world. Where we can hope for an outcome better than the bare minimum of one of us ending up alive. Where that outcome might just be lying in each other’s arms, ignoring our homework as long as we can, and listening to the sounds of London outside. 

The rarity happens before I even have much time to process it; I fall asleep before Simon Snow.


End file.
